


No Friends Like the Old Friends

by sakuuya



Category: Battle for London in the Air (Roleplay)
Genre: AKA the Luna trajectory, Andrew is a better friend than Dr. J deserves, Gen, Immortal Illuminati AU, Started with a silly idea, but then it grew feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:20:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25274575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakuuya/pseuds/sakuuya
Summary: After Dr. Jhandir is removed from active IIA duty, Andrew takes him out for drinks to try and cheer him up.
Relationships: Andrew O'Rourke & Dr. Anil Jhandir
Kudos: 4





	No Friends Like the Old Friends

It took more than a month after Dr. Jhandir was removed from active duty before he got word that Andrew was returning to London. Five weeks and three days, not that the doctor was counting. Certainly not. Ordinarily, he’d hate to seem desperate—he was proud and self-sufficient, _he was a good agent, blast it_ —but he hadn’t seen a friendly face in all that time, and the isolation was weighing on him.

Not just the isolation, either. The inquest had been closed, so very few people in the agency knew what exactly happened in Jammu. His fellow agents, though—people he’d worked alongside for _decades_ —looked at him in the halls like he was some kind of monster. He was tempted, in his weaker moments, to show them what a monster he could be, but he’d already lost so much.

In an effort to preserve his sanity, he intercepted Andrew before Andrew had even made it back to the home office and asked him out for drinks. The look that crossed Andrew’s face at his approach told Dr. Jhandir that his friend had heard about his situation, but Andrew agreed to go out with no hesitation.

He let Andrew pick the pub. One of the annoying little wrinkles of being consigned to administration is that he has to break off _all_ of his external habits for at least a decade—move into the long-term on-premise flats, start shopping at a different grocers, and stop patronizing any establishments that might possibly remember his face.

It was easier to just go to some dingy Irish pub where there’d be no chance of any recognition. So here he was at Murphy’s Bar, feeling horribly out of place. If he was being honest with himself, though, he’d been off-kilter since the inquest, suddenly devoid of the purpose that had driven him for more than a lifetime. Was it really any stranger to be in an unfamiliar, somewhat grimy pub?

“I’ll get the drinks,” he told Andrew. “You find us a seat—somewhere secluded.”

This was Andrew’s pub, not his, but Andrew was doing him a favor by coming out to listen to him complain. The least he could do in return was buy the first round. Besides, it gave him a chance to peruse the options, on the off chance that there was something here actually worth drinking.

Alas, that didn’t seem to be the case, so he sighed and approached the bar. “Two pints of Guinness, my good man,” he said with more enthusiasm than he felt.

The bartender stopped polishing a glass and looked Dr. Jhandir up and down. The doctor had anticipated the kind of place they’d be going, so he’d dressed down, in slacks and a simple button-up with a Nehru collar, rather than the Carnaby Row suits he favored these days. His clothes were probably higher-quality than this place’s usual patrons’, but he didn’t look like he was slumming it.

Because of that, he was taken aback when the bartender curled his lip and replied, “We don’t serve your kind here.”

After a second of slack-jawed shock, Dr. Jhandir spun on his heel and stormed deeper into the pub to look for Andrew. The place was bigger than it had looked from outside, with a (thankfully empty) stage and dance floor in a back room. He found Andrew there, tucked into a corner table.

“We need to find another pub,” he hissed. “This bartender is racist!”

Andrew’s forehead wrinkled. “Murphy? You sure? I know there’s a couple Asian regulars here, and he’s never given ‘em any trouble.”

“Well, he told _me_ that he ‘doesn’t serve my kind.’” Andrew kept staring up in confusion, but just as Dr. Jhandir was about to snap at him, he burst out laughing.

“Oh Lord,” Andrew said, gasping for breath. “It’s not ‘cause you’re Asian. He thought you were English!”

“I am _not_ English!”

“ _I_ know, but you know how you sound. In dim barlight? Easy mistake.” Andrew wiped the back of his hand over his eyes as he finally got control of his mirth. “You stay here and I’ll grab drinks. Guinness all right?”

“Let’s just go back to headquarters,” Dr. Jhandir said with a sigh. “I appreciate you trying to cheer me up, but it’s not on the cards today, I think.”

“Doc, no. Look, I’m sorry about Murphy. Can I please take you to another pub, at least? I know these last few weeks've been tough on you, and I'd feel a right arse if I just made it worse.”

Which was ironic, considering that he looked so hangdog that Dr. Jhandir couldn’t bear to say no. “Fine.”

Andrew brightened. "C'mon, I'll sneak you out the back way. Don’t want Murphy chasing you out with a hurley."

"That's not funny," Dr. Jhandir grumbled, but they still left through the back.

* * *

"This is the nicest pub I know," Andrew said as he held open the door to The Tipperary. It sounded like an apology, and indeed, if Dr. Jhandir hadn't taken the ten-minute walk between them, he wasn't sure he'd know he was in a different pub.

"It's fine. I'll let you talk to the bartender this time though, shall I?" Dr. Jhandir could have affected any number of regional Indian accents, could have pretended he only spoke bloody Assamese if necessary, but he didn't have the emotional energy. So he just pressed a five-pound note into Andrew's hand and hurried off to find a table before Andrew could protest that it was too much. 

The doctor sat at a high-backed booth out of sight of the bar. Andrew seemed to be taking his time getting back with the drinks, but Dr. Jhandir knew that his friend wasn’t really to blame for the itchy, restless feeling under his skin. He looked down and saw that he’d been fiddling with a beer mat without noticing he was doing it. Annoyed at himself, he ripped the pulpboard in half.

When Andrew set down a pint of dark stout in front of him a moment later, he jolted in his seat. Andrew was kind enough not to say anything about it but slid in across the booth and took a long draught of his own beer before speaking.

“So, uh, how’re you holding up?” Andrew asked. He looked uncomfortable, like he didn’t know how to broach the subject in a sensitive manner.

“I’m still furious, to be honest.” Dr. Jhandir tried a sip of his beer to steady himself, but that didn’t improve his mood any. “To be remanded to the home office like some washout! I’ve done so much important work over the years, and now it feels like none of that matters.”

“That’s not true!” Andrew insisted. “Everyone knows how much good you’ve done for the world. It’s just that they—”

“They don’t trust me anymore. I’m well aware.”

“Doc, that’s not what I meant. Being sent to administration doesn’t mean you’ve wasted the last hundred years. There’s people alive today who wouldn’t be if not for you. Like last year, in Borneo. Who knows how many people would’ve died if you weren’t there?” 

“And now I’ll never be able to help people on that scale again,” Dr. Jhandir countered bitterly. 

“Well, don’t say _never_. We’ve got a lot of time ahead of us.”

“Hmph. Li—the tribunal was very clear that this was a permanent reassignment, but I suppose we’ll see.” There were certainly more complaints he could have leveled against Liam O’Rourke, whom he was pretty sure influenced the rest of the tribunal into handing down such a harsh sentence. But Dr. Jhandir knew from experience that Andrew wasn’t a good sounding board when it came to grievances against his horrible older brother.

Andrew must have assumed that there was a rant about Liam incoming, though, because he quickly set down his glass and changed the subject: “What’ll you be doing in the home office? Maybe it won’t be so bad.”

“They want me to take over the medical lab full-time.”

“See? There you go. Weren’t you just saying last year that you wish you had more time to devote to research?”

“Are you implying I brought this on myself?”

“‘Course not! Mary and Joseph, Doc!”

“No, of course not. I apologize. You’re obviously just trying to find a silver lining, and I’m being querulous about it. It’s been a trying few weeks, as I’m sure you can imagine, and I’ve been on the defensive. Everyone at headquarters has either been looking at me like I’ve grown horns or trying to prise out the details of the, ah, incident.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about me. Whatever you did, I’m sure you had your reasons, and I’m content to leave it at that.” Andrew drained the rest of his beer. “I’m gonna go get another. Want one?”

“All right,” Dr. Jhandir replied, though he still had about a third of his first pint left. 

He concentrated on finishing it once Andrew left, thinking all the while about what his friend had said. Andrew must have known his (admittedly deserved) reputation for violence, just as he knew Andrew had never killed anyone. He was surprised how much it meant that Andrew was willing to believe the best of him. By the time Andrew returned with their second round, Dr. Jhandir was feeling a little sunnier.

“Cheers,” he said as Andrew set down the beers.

“Sláinte.” Andrew clinked his glass against the doctor’s.

**Author's Note:**

> The first half of this story was inspired by a story Alexander Siddig (Dr. J's faceclaim) tells about going to an Irish bar with his _Star Trek: Deep Space Nine_ co-star Colm Meaney, except that Meaney knew _exactly_ what would happen when he sent his English friend up to get beer, haha.
> 
> The second half was an attempt to provide context that spiraled out of control.


End file.
